


Pushes to Jump

by Kaoupa



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Mental Coercion, Mind Manipulation, More than Mind Control, Steven Universe Future, Theories, White Diamond is still evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoupa/pseuds/Kaoupa
Summary: Steven’s life has just been getting worse and worse lately. Things have all been going wrong for him, one after the other. Everyone seems like they’re leaving him behind, letting him slip out of their minds.It’s amazing how nobody really thought all that much about the one person in the universe that they knew for a fact had the power to affect people’s minds. (Well, maybe not).Warning: Somewhat dark.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 75





	Pushes to Jump

**Author's Note:**

> This hit me earlier today - and I wrote it today, too! I am feeling good with my overall production of fanfic, even if the story this time is darker than usual.
> 
> On a more serious note, I think that something like this might actually happen in the finale. It would explain several of the problems I (personally) have with the plot of both the Movie (which I... I think I might just need to rewatch the movie). And most of Steven Universe: Future's problems with everyone seemingly forgetting Steven exists.
> 
> I don't own Steven Universe.

Ever since she’d come far closer to losing than she ever had before, almost three years ago now (she still felt a trace of fear when she saw pink these days, but nothing so bad she couldn’t handle it), White Diamond had learned that sometimes, it could pay to be subtle.

Three years was nothing to her, after all. Three years was more than enough time to bend things back into her own advantage again.

The rest of the Empire could run itself, for the moment. After she ensured that all four Diamonds were united under the same banner again, the gem race could hardly deny what way was the best way.

She couldn’t afford to underestimate Pink Steven a second time. Which was why it had really seemed like such an obvious answer when it came to her. Why not give him… a perspective like hers? Her own lesson had been that she was the only person she could rely on.

She would teach him the same thing.

She could not catch him off guard. The Pink powers were simply designed to block her traditional method of handling the other Diamonds when they caused her issues. Bubbles would not keep him in stasis like they did normal gems. The Tower would not be sufficient to hold him anymore either - Blue and Yellow would turn against her again if she tried.

So all she had to do was turn _him_ against _them_.

Oh, and the rest of the gems who’d twisted his mind. Possibly the pets who spent time with him as well. Her attempt to deal with the latter via that Spinel (who hadn’t really questioned how she _knew_ where the Injector was or _how_ she had been able to make the Warp Network bring her to Earth so quickly without stopping at a Warp Pad) had… well, for all that it let her be subtle, the problems with indirect control had become apparent quickly. 

Among other things, when she regained her power she would have to come up with a bio-poison that did not have a half-life that rendered it useless in damaging anything beyond the borders of the settlement Steven lived in after a mere six thousand years of molecular decay. 

And Spinel accidentally destroying the Injector itself… the only reason she had not gone to do it herself at that point was because she knew how that route would end.

She’d been able to bring Yellow and Blue to Earth to pick her up quickly, before Spinel could possibly give anything away unwittingly. As an added bonus, the two of them were too focused on their new companion to give her much thought as she came up with a new approach.

Watching him was simple. She hardly needed an Observation Orb to see what her extensions were up to if she wanted - no matter how great or small. They’d been modeled after her own abilities, after all.

Little Homeworld was… bizarre. The organic life there was distressing, but she couldn’t do anything about it yet.

Of course, judging by how many gems now populated that tiny metropolis, it seemed she had really let herself go over the years, in terms of how many less-than-ideal gems she’d refused to look upon. That was part of what she had made the Empire for, after all - so she wouldn’t have to deal with them herself. She could hardly run the universe alone, after all - she could only spread herself so thin before things started to “poke through” in her control.

So she’d spent a fair amount of time focused around Steven, recently.

The gems he lived with had hardly needed any pressure at all to decide that Steven was capable of watching out for himself now (the “book” she had read once said that humans were designed to be social creatures, and prolonged lack of social contact could cause problems with their mental states. Baffling).

Keeping them from directly confronting him, or the sources of his conversion, was only slightly harder. The long-worn grooves in their minds created by thousands of years of refusing to confront their own imperfections, had been easy to catch them in again.

The Peridot had been a problem, however. She had needed to redouble her focus on that annoying green gem after Steven’s “dreams” started appearing on that video receptacle, to keep her from ruining everything.

And slightly focus a little more on Steven. She couldn’t spend too much time focusing on heis “friends”.

If she couldn’t keep him in the mindset that she wanted, it would be so much harder to get him to see things her way. Working on him from so far away made it so much harder to whisper to him.

The Lapis Lazuli and the Bismuth had not been… well, they had fewer bad memories attached to them, fewer seeds of anger from Steven directed at them that she could drag up and aggravate. But they had already been living elsewhere. It was simple to keep them focused on their work at “Little Homeworld” and him not focused on them.

The humans in his life, however…

The girl who had come with him, the “Connie”, the girl who had _humiliated_ HER by _TURNING HER PINK..._

She was far too perceptive for her own good. Far too quick to realize that Steven was starting to change. Refused to not see it, and asked Steven if she could do something for him.

But White’s power had let her influence _him_ that time - he didn’t have the knowledge of auras to notice hers seeping from within him, from her essence that had helped make the Pink Diamond gemstone. And that was all she needed.

After all, nothing was wrong. There was no need to help him.

The “Greg”... she had no power over him, but she could not have done a better job herself of isolating him from Steven, after she’d pushed the latter to confront him.

The Jasper… oh, there was so much there she could do thanks to her.

Rage that _needed_ an outlet could be expressed, fury at the people around him that she’d helped him to convince himself to not express at them… and she could use them both. A pair of unwitting receptacles of her will. Both making each other just that little bit more susceptible.

And he had listened. Listened so carefully, so unwittingly, to Jasper. She’d barely had to do anything to him. After all, she had hurt him. She’d ignored him, laughed at him for so long.

What good would his method ever do for somebody who wasn’t willing to LISTEN?

That had been a lesson that she remembered well. No matter what you did, there were always going to be those who would never open their minds to you. To a better way of doing things, of making the universe better.

The way she had learned it still hurt. Even after all this time.

But for a second, he had _listened._ Had seen things that way. That if somebody wouldn’t listen, you should MAKE them listen. Because sometimes there was no other way the message would ever make it into their minds.

Until he’d touched down.

And the resulting backlash from him emotionally when he’d seen Jasper’s shards had nearly undone months, if not years, of careful work.

She’d been annoyed by the Jasper’s loss at first, nothing more. Up until Steven had nearly thrown off her chains entirely.

She had taken note of the fact that shattered gems could be healed with the essences of all four Diamonds. She’d have to set aside a reservoir in the future for such a purpose.

But things were going to her advantage once again. Steven had started viewing himself as a Diamond - and with him accessing his full strength to end Jasper, it would be simple to give him a few choice prods in his mind (she’d already started). He’d be more willing to do things like that in the future.

And either way, once he got to Homeworld, she could do things far more easily, straining her powers far less. She could finally start focusing on Blue and Yellow more heavily again, once he’d seen her viewpoint.

All she had to do was wait. For a time, the universe had not bent to her - but she’d correct that soon enough.

After all, who was powerful enough to stop her?

**Author's Note:**

> The entirety of Steven Universe Future, I have been to some degree baffled by the approach that people have been taking to Steven, and how they’re all taking him sort of for granted, the gems far more than the humans.
> 
> Then, after I remembered a few other stories I read, I had a thought. What if there was a reason for that IN-universe, and not just out?


End file.
